Siew Meng Leong

A Citation Analysis of the Journal of Consumer Research

An analysis of the nature of reference sources cited by authors of articles published in five sample volumes of the Journal of Consumer Research is reported. Results indicate that consumer researchers draw upon a diverse literature, although much of it is seldom used. Consumer research is linked most closely with psychology and marketing, although there is a rising trend of citations to its own literature base. JCR authors also tend to rely primarily on journals for their sources of references.

The Asian Apocalypse: Crisis Marketing for Consumers and Businesses

Abstract Analyses of consumers from various Asian countries indicate falling confidence and a tightening of belts during the recession. Strategies employed by consumers to tide them over the economic crisis include: more comparative shopping; delaying purchases of expensive items; placing more emphasis on product durability and functionality; switching to lower end and local brands; developing a product life cycle–cost perspective; relying more on informative and less on imagery-based advertisements; and buying more often at discount stores. Businesses face cash flow challenges as banks and suppliers are less willing to provide favourable financial terms, whilst customers default more or buy less. Effective strategies that will help businesses during this period include expanding into crisis-resistant markets such as non-Asian and youth markets; introducing ‘fighter’ lines; maintaining prices while augmenting existing products; developing adaptive positioning; using informative advertisements; and pruning marginal channels.

Out of the mouths of babes: Business ethics and youths in asia

A model of corporate ethics and social responsibility (CESR) was developed and empirically tested among Chinese business undergraduates in Hong Kong and Singapore. As predicted, it was found that CESR beliefs were negatively related to Machiavellianism and two Confucian concepts, guanxi (interpersonal connections) and mianzi (face). CESR beliefs were also lower among Hong Kong than Singaporean youths. The negative effects of guanxi, mianzi, and Machiavellianism were more pronounced for the Hong Kong than Singapore sample. Implications of these findings are discussed and directions for future research suggested.

A Typology of Animosity and its Cross-National Validation:

Four types of animosity, the emotional antagonism felt toward a specific entity, were identified as a function of their sources (situational vs. stable) and locus (personal vs. national) of manifestation. A five-country survey was conducted in Asia to validate the typology, using the United States and Japan as target entities. Results affirmed the four-factor structure of the proposed typology. Several cross-national differences in animosity were also uncovered. Indonesians, Malaysians, and Thais tended to have greater situational animosity toward the United States than Japan, except for Koreans and Singaporeans. Not surprisingly, Koreans showed greater stable animosity toward Japan than the United States. Asians also demonstrated a higher level of animosity at the national than personal level. Implications arising from the findings are discussed and directions for future research suggested.

Exploring the organizational commitment— Performance linkage in marketing: A study of life insurance salespeople

Abstract This study explores the impact of organizational commitment on performance in a marketing context. A model is set forth in which organizational commitment is associated with performance through higher levels of exertion (working hard) and well-directed effort (working smart). Hypothesized relationships are tested using survey responses from a sample of life insurance agents in Singapore. Results revealed the influence of organizational commitment was mediated by working hard and to a lesser extent, working smart. A strong positive relationship was detected between working hard and performance. Implications of the findings are discussed and directions for future research suggested.

Cross-National Logo Evaluation Analysis: An Individual-Level Approach

The universality of design perception and response is tested using data collected from ten countries: Argentina, Australia, China, Germany, Great Britain, India, the Netherlands, Russia, Singapore, and the United States. A Bayesian, finite-mixture, structural-equation model is developed that identifies latent logo clusters while accounting for heterogeneity in evaluations. The concomitant variable approach allows cluster probabilities to be country specific. Rather than a priori defined clusters, our procedure provides a posteriori cross-national logo clusters based on consumer response similarity. To compare the a posteriori cross-national logo clusters, our approach is integrated with Steenkamp and Baumgartner’s (1998) measurement invariance methodology. Our model reduces the ten countries to three cross-national clusters that respond differently to logo design dimensions: the West, Asia, and Russia. The dimensions underlying design are found to be similar across countries, suggesting that elaborateness, naturalness, and harmony are universal design dimensions. Responses (affect, shared meaning, subjective familiarity, and true and false recognition) to logo design dimensions (elaborateness, naturalness, and harmony) and elements (repetition, proportion, and parallelism) are also relatively consistent, although we find minor differences across clusters. Our results suggest that managers can implement a global logo strategy, but they also can optimize logos for specific countries if desired.

Consumer decision making for common, repeat-purchase products: A dual replication

Two notable studies ( Hoyer, 1984 ; Hoyer & Brown, 1990 ) examining the use of heuristics for common, repeatedly purchased products are replicated and extended. The findings indicate the robustness in the employment of simple choice tactics by consumers of different cultures and for different product classes. They also suggest that one such tactic, brand awareness, affected both initial and subsequent brand selections. Implications of the research and its findings are discussed.

The mediating influence of pleasure and arousal on layout and signage effects: Comparing more and less customized retail services

Abstract The effects on customer emotional responses and behaviour of two physical environment factors—layout and signage—and the overall servicescape were investigated in two retail settings: one where banking transactions were conducted in an automatic teller machine lobby and the other in a branch bank. The emotional responses studied were pleasure and arousal. The findings were generally replicated across both service settings. Better layout, signage, and servicescape resulted in more favourable emotional responses, particularly in terms of pleasure. Pleasure was also found to mediate the effects of these environmental factors on customer behaviour. Arousal was found to consist of two dimensions: one more overt and the other more passive. The banking service environment appears to influence the passive dimension of arousal more so than overt arousal. Some tentative insights were also obtained regarding the potential impact of service customization on these findings. Specifically, it was found that the effect of a good servicescape on customer behaviour was more pronounced when the service offered less customization in the branch bank but not the ATM lobby setting.

Increasing Brand Name Recall in Print Advertising among Asian Consumers

Abstract The authors replicate and extend previous research on the effects of pictures, consumer information-processing level, ad meaning, and ad exposure on brand name recall by using consumers in a different culture. The findings indicate the robustness of the effects of those factors on recall. Specifically, better recall was obtained with ads containing pictures and words than with words-only ads, with ads processed semantically than with ads processed sensorially, with ads having high level of meaning, and with ads that were repeated. Use of a high-meaning picture-and-words ad that was processed semantically and repeated achieved an improvement of nearly 52% in brand name recall over use of a low-meaning words-only ad that was procssed sensorially and shown once to subjects. The most significant contributor to explaining brand recall variation is the level-of-meaning factor, followed by ad exposure, level of processing, and ad type. Several significant interactions among those factors also were obser...

Dominance and dilution: the effects of extending master brands

Examines the effects of extending master brands — brands which so dominate a product category that they are almost synonymous with it. Three factors were experimentally manipulated — category dominance, the success of an extension, and the similarity between the extended and original products. The results indicated that a brand’s association with its original product category was diluted when an extension failed. This effect was moderated by category dominance prior to the extension. Specifically, the dilution effect was less pronounced for master brands than for brands which were less dominant in a product category. However, the similarity between the extended and original product categories did not moderate the dilution effects of master and less dominant brand extensions.